


There are Such Things

by jigsawpuzzle



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, Americanhistory, Blow Jobs, Dirtythirties, Dust Bowl, Employer!Erwin, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, Great Depression, Itinerant!Levi, M/M, Other, Slow Build, Swing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 01:47:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jigsawpuzzle/pseuds/jigsawpuzzle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And he’s forced to act like those in awe and respectful of this Joe, but he’d opened his brown envelopes of carefully-marked sawbucks last night. It wasn't a bad stash, but keeping this job and acting like he accepts authority seems necessary for a while more.</p><p>Smith smiles for just a second. “Also, it’s just Erwin. They tell me you go by just Levi?”</p><p>Levi takes his hand back and hesitates. “Right.”</p><p>And it all goes wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, a Dirty 30s, American historical AU! I'm no American, but this period has fascinated me and it seemed perfect to negotiate some ideas I had for a long time. Tell me what you think and please enjoy! Title's from Tommy Dorsey's swing piece, go listen if you want.

It takes Levi nearly all spring to unclog the pool while his afternoons are spent working in a twelve-acre estate. He weeds like he’s never done before and cuts the allocated area of grass weekly. Mornings are spent sweeping up and arranging the bags for a morning truck and he does it without being told twice. Others take care of the orchard and fountain, but the gusts swirl and the leaves whistle everywhere and into the water.

Each evening, it’s evident that the cleaning never seems to get done no matter how much back he puts into it. Better him than them-- Isabel isn’t watchful enough and Farlan is an incorrigible slob. It’s a dirty job but his nomination was obvious when they did their sums and didn’t have enough to last them through summer and till mid-autumn.

The wall’s length marks just a quarter of the land’s perimeter with its monstrosity of a house. It’s still not a bad deal when he doesn’t have to clean indoors and is left to do his work in relative silence. As it is, he’s proven so competent at mowing, weeding and cleaning that his temporary employment is extended. It’s almost laughable, how he simply needs to clean and keep an eye out for the neighbours.

X

By the end of spring, there’s nearly always music floating over the part of the wall facing the family next door. There’s the clink of crystal glasses and the unmistakeable smell of roasting meats and the house he’s working for would probably be like this, except that Levi’s employer has no wife and children and has been perpetually absent.

In the afternoons, it grows warm enough for him to find his shirt completely soaked. He’s given all three meals on the house and usually ends up near the pool where the wall isn’t far. But for them, they have tea whenever they please and the portable lies on a picnic blanket as they stretch out under fragrant orange trees.

Standing on his tiptoes, spare deck chairs stacked high, Levi notes how they never really have to work. She catches his eye, he’ll give her that. She’s buxom, a real dish with ravens’ wings for hair and tanned only from a sun that she doesn’t work under. The Joe is thin, goateed and lazy, constantly complaining but indulging his wife and the young ones too easily. She must love him or be a real gold-digger, Levi concludes, because no broad would have been convinced to make whoopee so easily under that sun by simply being called Dollface or Mary-my-luv. Partitioned away, they don’t ever notice or look over even when he hacks at the grass with more than the necessary force.

He wouldn’t have wanted to assign faces to the constant stream of voices drifting over the wall, but it was eventually necessary to look. They’re a noisy, careless bunch with their servants and weekends, rolling on the grass, rolling into town in the red Packard, rolling in the green. There’s a flustered nanny and drooling, pampered children screaming at each other, sometimes running right behind Levi’s wall. The owner’s wall.

He’s quiet, doesn’t complain about cleaning and never stands out, which was why he was even suited to working here at all. It bodes well-- he gets paid more for this than anything offered so far and it helps that the neighbours don’t know and wouldn’t care about his looking over.

Then Moblit bothers making a few calls and Levi doesn’t refuse the offer of regular employment with an increased pay.

X

The fruit trees dot the area next to a small stable that Levi isn’t required to work in. He doesn’t explore beyond his allocated areas of work because it’s unnecessary for his purposes. The other labourers do, although nobody really bothers Levi at the pool and the wall. Over the month, he sees a few gardeners gathering the over-ripe Florescetts, some eating more and pruning less than they would have if the owner of the house was around. It’s a funny world, being shielded by such high walls away from the pungent, desperate endeavours of the poor.

Levi stays wary of the regularly-employed staff in the estate. Moblit says he’s a trained accountant, but he’s overseeing housekeeping matters. He’s alright, but he’s definitely not a real butler with their famous English standards in a dying niche. Anyway, there are so many temporary staff over the summer that supervision would be limited. Moblit’s not dishonest, not really, but there’s only so much temptation that he can suffer—he caved and ate from the orchard while the others who’d already done so watched. But then everybody says that the fruits would have gone to waste anyway—the owner deals in machinery, not husbandry.

Levi himself is too careful and keeps his hands out of the orchard and his feet out of the pool. It’s summer now and it’s a new game to Levi and those who are relying on him to keep this assignment. Yet, everybody’s more relaxed and all but him move around the estate freely. Eventually, one odd job labourer, Jean, learns a lesson from trying to take a dip when Levi’s around and just finished cleaning, near the walls dividing this estate and the neighbour’s. Nobody tries it after that and everyone reckons Levi’s a really good worker who won’t slack off. It’s fairly true.

The strangled chorus from the neighbours’ broadcast is loud enough to inform of a new spike in country-wide unemployment. He shouldn’t have to listen-- Isabel’s perpetual cough and Farlan’s hollowed cheeks are sufficient reminders.

When it’s downtime, Levi never mingles too much. During nightfall, he stays in his tiny room in the servants’ quarters. It has no window, but the lodging is near enough the mansion and he can always hear if the Chrysler comes.

X

The owner’s right-hand is also the butter and egg man. He’s apparently good enough to allocate wages and drive the automobile to and fro from wherever, holding the mansion’s keys on its owner’s behalf.

When he drops by, Mike Zacharias hands out the servants’ pay, both regular and part-time and he squints during Moblit’s introduction, asks a few questions about Levi’s age and education and sniffs the air like Levi isn’t clean enough. There’s also this wild-haired, cackling woman without hat or gloves, tagging around, never wearing a skirt or dress and favouring men’s pants. She locks up after Zacharias fetches what he needs, always laughing at something and making comments about everything though there’s nothing obviously funny. Levi observes enough from the pool to decide that she must be some sort of trustworthy lunatic.

They sit at the balcony sometimes, or at the pool, discussing things that Levi doesn’t have to hear. Like Levi, they never dip their feet into the pool. But as hard-boiled as they seem, they overlook details of housekeeping and are focused on fetching documents, making pay-outs and administering calls for their employer—real lackeys. Where Moblit has discretion to hire semi-permanent labourers, Zacharias makes no comment and Levi’s not fool enough to forget his role.

He’s forced to try and describe the world behind the wall over the weekends. His friends listen so intently about the rich man’s world that Levi’s almost sickened, but then Isabel gets incredulous for strange reasons.

“You mean you don’t even take the fruits or try out the pool when nobody’s looking?”

“He cleans the pool, he’s not going to dip his feet in right after that,” Farlan juts in. Fresh from his petrol job at the edge of town, his face and fair hair seem permanently stained with oil and weariness. “You know what Levi’s like.”

X

When the high clouds roll in, Benny Goodman’s refrains prove incessant and dizzyingly loud.

There isn’t supposed to be money to spare, but these people are different. Even their servants are paid well enough to catch the screwball comedies in theatres and some own radios—and listening, for Levi, is always free. Because it seems like the owner isn’t returning any time soon, everybody relaxes. They dance on the lawn when the sporting events and comedy programs fade out and bleed back into swing.

Petra Ral has admittedly little to wash and dust when the mansion is locked and she’s relegated to just the servants’ laundry. She tries curling her hair and indulges in the soaps, humming the ditties and pulling Levi along to a dance hall one night. He’s no tin ear, but the songs on the radio don’t sing to him and he won’t dance either.

He owns next to nothing except what’s left of his wages and savings. Some weeks, he gives three-fifths to Isabel and Farlan when the month stretches too long and somehow, they all manage. But between all the work and his standing near the wall, hearing the neighbours laugh and talk, Levi catches enough of the bandleader’s echoes to remember things that confuse him.

When he had been very young, there was somebody in the kitchen, singing soft and low, voice husky with a fragile emotion that Levi doesn’t know anymore. Once, the smoke of a pipe somewhere and the rhythms of their tiny lives had been held in the song, but he doesn’t remember exactly when they were stuffed into a car, trundling along dried-out roads. All he thinks is that he had a roof once and no place feels real or permanent now. The Dust bowl and the plagues melt grey and tiny in his memory, the sweetness of that jazz crumbling away to the pounding swing of the present.

It continues like this for two weeks, the men going as far as to work and tan without their shirts, the women taking hours off to compare feedsack prints that the next month’s pay might buy. The orchard fruits are plentiful even when more are plucked every day, but nobody after Jean dares swim in the pool¬, not on Levi’s watch near the wall.

Then one evening, the black Chrysler pulls smoothly into the driveway, past the orchard, past the stable, past the fountain and into the garage.

Nobody really pays attention on that Sunday.

X

He only manages to skip off the chairs that he’d piled high, cursing once again at his lack of height and moving away in time before he’s truly spotted. At the pillar where an angel statue with massive dual-coloured wings stands en pointe, he takes the rag that he’d kept there as he always planned he might have to.

In the distance where he’s slowly approaching, Zacharias squints and almost looks like he’s sniffing again, but Levi’s scrammed, already assumed the look of a diligent worker and is moving along the wall, getting near the pool where there’s a path back to the servants’ quarters.

He has to halt though, because there’s already another person sitting at the other side of the pool, beyond the trees and the wall. The man’s rolled one pant leg up to a thick calve and has evidently finished dipping one huge goddamn foot into the goddamn pool that Levi only just unclogged hours ago.

The owner of the estate looks up at him as Zacharias rounds the corner, right behind Levi.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?”

Levi stares down one of the single-toned, unlaced brogues. He feels waylaid and trapped and so help him, Levi has never wanted to feel that since he took hold of the wheel for the three who left the burnt, cracked farmlands.

“He’s been in charge of cleaning the pool,” Zacharias informs, “Amongst other things.”

“Sure,” Erwin Smith says easily.

He stands up slowly from the chair, togged to the bricks with his sharp-shouldered slate grey suit and broad, long lapels. He’s thick-set and tall, moving heavily like he’s got a bad knee. He’s not exactly clumsy, though, just tired-looking with the pool lights skipping off his hair and eyes.

Levi swallows, somehow affected despite having been numb to the tendencies of envy and disgust while working in this plenteous estate. If they wanted, they could reprimand or fire Levi for standing on a stack of chairs, looking over the wall at the neighbours’ party, their chortling, happy children—things he had no business staring at. But they haven’t caught him, not really.

“Erwin,” Zacharias is saying, distracted from Levi for that minute. “Haven’t you gone into the house yet?”

Remarkably, Smith smiles a bit. “I wanted to rest out here.”

“You should check.”

“I’m sure nothing’s missing.”

“You’re the boss,” Zacharias shrugs and then notices that Levi is still standing there, somewhere between the two of them. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

They all know that he looks like he’s been loafing off and not working hard enough. They all know it even if it’s not exactly true and it drives Levi mad suddenly. He bites down his anger.

Sullenly, Levi turns to go even as Smith says, “What’s your name?”

He pretends he didn’t hear and leaves Zacharias to answer as he moves away from the pool and wall.

X

“Bet he thinks you’re a twit employee all around,” someone marvels at dinner.

“I heard Mike telling Moblit that you probably didn’t even know Erwin Smith was the master of the household. Didn’t anyone tell you about good ol’ Erwin?”

“You’re always sour,” another chimes in. “Shore made yourself look a real pill in front of our pip.”

“Shut your trap,” Levi says sharply, waiting for Rico to pass him water.

“Oh, Mike’s tough and his moll isn’t much to toss around either, but Erwin nearly runs this town,” Gunther says quietly, “You’ll not crust him so easily, no.”

They all nod, like Levi gives a hoot about Smith being who he is, like Levi really cares about this job and wants to spend the rest of his life unclogging the pool until winter freezes the whole darn thing over.

“German-Irish, before this country,” says Ian Dietrich. “But you’d never guess— those vowels are an Englishman’s. Helps when the family has money to send you for a real education.”

The faces in the labourers’ kitchen genuinely brighten when it comes to Erwin Smith because heavy industry has taken a real beating but Smith’s employment is kind and they always get paid in full. That thought and their faces make Levi even surlier. He mutters an oath, making the women in the kitchen shift around uncomfortably at his salty tongue, but Levi feels sick and tired and won’t bother about propriety just now.

“Compelling, he is,” Oluo says, coming in and standing at the doorway, sweating even though he’s stripped down to his cotton shirt and suspenders. “I heard he went hunting with someone who tried to do him in on the same day. Came back to the house with his chest plugged with lead, bleedin’ like ain’t nobody seen before, an’ the next day he was back to business, driving back to town.”

Someone’s trying to crank up the right channel and Levi bites back his retorts.

Meanwhile, Moblit has finished and goes to wash his plate and utensils. “For sure, Levi, Erwin is one of the decents. Poor scrubs like you and me only needa work hard and honest. He won’t mind that you and me ain’t too hot at talking.”

Levi only grunts and reaches for more bread. He won’t explain that he isn’t actually a poor itinerant like every other Okie who couldn’t find employment and landed up here. He doesn’t speak with a drawl and won’t talk about where he’s from, but they already can guess and heard that story before—it’s true for most of the country and nobody bothers with sympathy these days. Doubtless, many have remarked about his small frame, but it was only because he could lift so many bricks and clean the way he does. Nobody talks about making it rich these days, but nobody talks about the diseases and sand inhalation or famine either—everybody prefers the cinema theatres and forgetting their lives in those precious hours of darkness.

“Once in a while,” Tommy Dorsey sings, “Will you try to give one little thought to me?”

At the doorway, Petra pushes her way past Oluo, exhausted from the work and appealing for someone to turn up the volume. Like Rico Brzenska, she left Poland for what seemed to represent a dream. It was probably just a dream.

X

“You’ll have to clean the pool today,” Moblit informs him the next morning. “Erwin’s holding a rag evening after.”

“I clean it every day,” Levi replies and Moblit shuts up, because it’s only been two months and a few weeks and Levi knows more about housekeeping than Moblit does, earning his keep and Oluo’s admiration. Moblit doesn’t mind or get antsy either; Moblit’s alright but too good-hearted and dim for that.

“And the Chrysler too,” Moblit tells him. “The mechanics are a bit way out of town here and Erwin wouldn’t care about appearances, but I don’t trust just anyone to touch the car and shine it up. Mike was asking around and I told them you probably could. Shake a leg, now.”

Levi scowls, takes his rag from the window sill where about six chairs are stacked, then hops down. He’s definitely older than Moblit, but he has to look up at Moblit to say, “By when?”

X

Levi doesn’t know much about expense where automobiles are concerned, but the Chrysler’s beauty gleams even clearer when he’s cleaning and polishing. While waxing, he notes how there must have been some customization with the hidden headlights, door hinges mounting on the inside instead of outside. He squats, pausing his polishing for a minute or two to examine the hinges.

His head swims with the smell of perfumed leather and there’s a standard radio and electric, variable-speed wipers that make a trip for the biscuits out of Levi’s efforts to scrub the windscreen. It’s grand, nothing like what he remembers of the Magnolias’ beat-up, struggling Stutz when the three of them had nowhere else to go. He traces the metal edges of the hinges, wondering.

"They put them inside to suit the four-speed transmission—makes the aerodynamics a bit better.”

Erwin Smith has apparently not gone to town this Monday morning, but has kept away his fedora, rolled up his shirt sleeves and is standing around in his suit pants and dress shoes, like he was prepared to work anyway.

He comes over and inspects the work. He must be plenty alright with it because he nods. “So you know something about pools and cars.”

Levi, who has managed not to drop the rag , stands and scowls. “Don’t see why a three-speed transmission isn’t good enough.”

“The makers advised me not to stick to the old rules during the purchase.” Smith smiles blankly at something Levi can’t see. “They were sort of smooth.”

“Sure,” Levi says sharply. “Just for twits.”

And he figures in that instant that Smith might just fire him. But he just grins and extends a hand and Levi stares.

“It’s dirty,” Levi says blankly. It’s true, because he thought he’d check the wheels and ended up changing one tire for fear of it going flat. Petrol is black and sable on his palm and Smith’s blue eyes skirt to the jack and eventually land near the smudge on his cheek.

“I’m not fuss,” Smith tells him.

Then Levi’s forced to shake Smith’s hand and it’s pitiful how they’re sizing each other up when there’s nothing to compare, not really. But Levi remembers what was said about firm handshakes and won’t back down by dropping his eyes to his feet, making Smith the first to let go.

“Can you drive?”

Sure, Levi can. He probably watched his Da and then his Ma around the farm because he tried the steering wheel of a tractor when he was six. He’d been peering over their shoulders for hundreds of miles, manning the plot after the shooting, learning just from watching and being forced to get himself and their neighbours’ kids through a year of hopeless wandering from town to town and away from the dead lands—right before they landed up in this gig. He practically grew up overnight while travelling, after the skirmish that left three orphans in the backseat. He’s driven before, but then they’ve driven everywhere and nowhere, using whatever they could to get petrol; to get forward, waking from every jerky doss like there was never a new morning, working for nearly nothing just to survive, never really stopping or looking back to ask why. Sure, he can drive.

“Yes,” Levi says.

“Mike’s taken a bit of a vacation,” the man says, like Levi hasn’t heard the others gossiping about Zacharias getting dizzy over his dame. “He usually drives me back from town when I’m too tired to steer. You could do that.”

“Mr. Smith,” Levi grits. “I was just hired to clean the pool.”

“I understand. You’ll be fairly compensated for the responsibility. You can drive, yes?”

And he’s forced to act like those in awe and respectful of this Joe, but he’d opened his brown envelopes of carefully-marked sawbucks last night. It wasn’t a bad stash, but keeping this job and acting like he accepts authority seems necessary for a while more.

Smith smiles for just a second. “Also, it’s just Erwin. They tell me you go by just Levi?”

Levi takes his hand back and hesitates. “Right.”

And it all goes wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Time to go,” Erwin says.
> 
> And Levi follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all those who reviewed or left kudos, I am thrilled! Here's on to more action and action after the action, if you know what I mean-- drop me a word or two, you know I love those.

Hange Zoë is one of those too-tall, off-putting Dutch women who don’t shave, don’t bother with handkerchiefs and have brilliant minds for sums and enterprise.

Some women in the servants’ quarters are in awe of the immigrant who came here as a picture bride, worked as a shop assistant and eventually rose to prominence alongside Erwin Smith. Most are slightly repulsed by her loud, uncouth ways, open atheism and obsession with ‘scientific’ theories.

Busy mulling about other things, Levi sits in the kitchen and doesn’t care either way until she asks to see him shortly after that garage incident.

It’s not that difficult to find the meeting room when Levi knows how to empty his face of expression and ignore all the finery that Erwin Smith lives in the thick of; the grandfather clock in the corner, golden chandeliers, gilded handles of real oak doors, the ballroom, pool table and fireplace with Persian carpets and a plush tiger skin. He trudges up the stairs, not holding onto the ornate brass rail, tracing the sound of her voice rattling on and on over the telephone until he knocks and enters without waiting.

Her glasses are smudged, her hair a mess in a would-be coif and a pencil behind her ear, all while a harassed- looking Moblit stands taking notes. She’s chewing another pencil and throwing off figures simultaneously, but she cuts the conversation off quickly and tosses the line back to Moblit, who then scrams off and closes the doors behind them.

Levi remembers what others said about her start and her current employment. He wonders if she was really Erwin’s picture bride or whether that was idle talk, because she’s no billboard and Erwin is also nowhere in sight. Not that Levi was looking—he concentrates on the person who sent for him.

“Since you’re going to drive, I thought I’d test it first, check your reliability and all that,” she announces, standing and immediately dwarfing Levi who wasn’t offered a seat.

She grabs a flat, wooden box on the overloaded table and unlatches it, taking out whatever’s inside and shoving it into Levi’s hands. “Come on—day’s no younger than you and me, you’ll need this convincer to manage at them clip-joints. I’m Hange, if you haven’t heard. You’re not really an Okie, are you, as in, not from there? Wouldn’t have guessed anyway, you look younger than I expected, Erwin made you sound all hard-boiled, but at least this one’s pocket-sized.”

“I’m supposed to drive,” Levi says, holding the gun and ignoring her flurried speech patterns and abrupt introduction. “Not shoot anyone. I’m no hitman.”

She snorts, moving to the door and evidently shooing him out. “You think Erwin would just let anyone in his employment fill up some person with daylight? It’s unloaded, not them real gats that Mike carries around under the overcoat. Erwin didn’t think there was a need, but Mike insisted.”

A key is produced and she begins to lock up a safe near the room’s entrance, still chattering non-stop. “No fear generally, Erwin’s generally popular, never really getting into a lather over anything. Why, there was a little maid who pocketed here and there and Mike caught her and fired her before Erwin got back—it wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I assure you, Erwin will be easy to drive except when he turns down a date; he’s a real cake-eater with that brick jaw and baby blue eyes— ladies love him, but he’s hopeless with anything but business these days. And Mike’s off running his own business, which leaves me. And you, apparently, but you’ll learn about Erwin soon enough.”

Levi follows her to the door with his assigned gun, still taken aback even if he refuses to show it. “What do I need this for?”

She whirls back and gazes down at him, peepers crazy-huge behind the frames. “Don’t you know? Erwin’s a powerful man, he’s respected because he’s in the kind of investments that are helping this town—you must know that it’s doing better than plenty’ o other places. This town deals in a bit of everything, oil, prunes, oranges, apples and it’s alright for now. But these are hard times and Erwin’s about the only one making heavy sugar of selling machines to state initiatives.”

“So?” He glares at her, not understanding fully and suddenly bothered by his ignorance regarding Erwin Smith and his businesses. “Sounds like a real do-gooder that wouldn’t get bumped off.”

“Those machines help struggling farms yes, but they’re making people useless in other towns. Besides, no town’s all safe, not even his own town— even Nile the dirty copper next door has had problems, you hear? Erwin’s tight with the right people and all that, but it makes problems too and it’s good to have solutions to those. Now you’d better drive good; I don’t like the idea of Erwin just taking on a new driver because he apparently cleans and changes tires well.”

This confirms pretty much what everyone had said in the kitchen and more, but Levi twitches in annoyance as he follows her down a hallway, literally trotting to keep up with her long strides. “I drive plenty good—don’t need seeing-glasses even in the night.”

“’Course you get the promised increment,” Hange says, like she didn’t hear his pointed comment. “Ian’s taken measurements long enough to guess yours, so the new clothes and a suit are already making its way to you. Why, Erwin’s a big-timer of a man alright, but you’d not be too far off charming next to him if you’d get suited up. Kid-sized at the department store, mebbe, but you’ll be smartened up alright. ”

Levi loses his patience and swears at her openly, but it’s just as he should have guessed— this twist is such a nutter that she laughs and claps him on the back, like she already trusts him.

 

X

 

Levi finds Erwin in the orchard early the next morning before they’re due to leave at eight. Levi’s not late, but it’s unsettling to look out of the quarter’s kitchen window and see the man whom Hange had talked about so earnestly.

Erwin’s hair is neat and his face freshly-shaven, but he’s not raring to go. Instead, he’s resting on a stone bench beneath one of the trees, quietly reading a book and eating an apple. Orange trees are commonplace and the neighbour has two dozen, but perhaps Erwin just prefers the latter fruit.

Despite himself and the situation he’s forced into, Levi had asked yesterday and listened to others talk about Erwin, the way he’d used his family inheritance to make more money and how he never withheld help if he could offer it.  Levi doesn’t know whether to approach and the others aren’t around to tell him what to do, but curiosity overcomes eventually and Erwin greets him good morning when he does.

 “Whenever you’re ready,” Levi says, hair cut shorter than in months and somewhat stiff in his attire of the new shirt, tie, pants and shoes.

“In a while,” Erwin nods, glancing up and taking in his appearance without comment. “I want to finish this bit. Sit and help yourself to those.”

Cautiously, Levi sits next to him, haplessly wiping and biting into the offered apple it because there’s nothing else to do. Hange’s right about at least one thing—Erwin’s no mangy Airedale in his three-piece suit. Even while sitting, his presence is almost alarming to someone like Levi, authority radiating beneath the coat slung that’s loosely over broad shoulders. There’s slightly less than a decade between them, but Erwin’s refinement and calm are very different from Levi’s small, roughened hands and pitilessness.

He sneaks a look at Erwin’s book cover and thinks it’s downright weird that a twenty-eight year old man uses a leaf as a bookmark, but that’s not Levi’s current concern. He hasn’t read a book in years and unlike Erwin, whose lips move silently and unconsciously, he’s never read for leisure even if he’s literate enough.

Fifteen minutes drag by and Oluo in the orchard turns on the sprinklers. Only in a place like this would everything be lush and green, Levi thinks, golden and white with red roses on the wall’s edge and berries nestled on bushes. It’s not the real world, but it’s becoming more than what was to be temporary with its owner living and breathing next to him.

At the points when Erwin shifts and rests the book down, Levi looks at his lap. He doesn’t really understand what he catches snippets of, but is sure that he’ll remember a name like “Aldous Huxley” and will inquire for a second-hand copy over the weekend.  It’s shaping to be a hot day and a bead of sweat begins to trail around Erwin’s forehead—without thinking, Levi nearly reaches to wipe it away and catches himself in time.

He swallows, looking uncomfortably to the dew-scattered grass, thankful that Erwin was too engrossed reading to really see, even if he’d glanced up, distracted at Levi’s tiny gesture. Levi’s not sure why he had the urge to do that and shifts his shoulders in, trying to make himself seem smaller than he is.

Eventually, Erwin finishes the book and his apple, wipes his fingers with a clean kerchief, folds it and stands. The sunlight is getting quite strong outside the trees’ shade and Levi can see that his mouth is still sticky.

“Time to go,” Erwin says.

And Levi follows.

 

X

 

The roads in this town are smooth compared to what gasoline gypsies travel on and Levi’s never had to wear a tie this fine to drive on gravel and dirt, not even as a kid on Sundays. The Chrysler is perfect, almost flying through the air during those second-long intervals, hurtling into space and turning beautifully on the winding sides. Levi’s actually trapped like this by the belt, considering that he never used to wear one, but it’s as close to feeling free as he’d wager. He doesn’t really know where he’s going once he reaches the main square, but that’s alright because Erwin leans over his shoulder at points, directing him to artery lanes.

Levi can smell the musk and traces of apple blossom on the well-tailored clothes—the trace of perspiration, faint cologne and grass. The billboards roll by, rows of shops and the gas station blurring outside their windows. He has to squint once or twice to concentrate and he’s not nervous, not about driving anyway, but he thinks that he shouldn’t have claimed to know how to drive. Erwin’s eyes follow him in the mirror and Levi has to swallow once or twice, somehow distracted and uncertain with the pistol pressing hard in his pocket.

“Moblit mentioned that you’ve never once swam in the pool,” Erwin mentions at some point. “You could try it sometime.”

Levi shoots him an incredulous look in the mirror and Erwin looks back without irony or challenge, almost like he’s guessed that Levi can’t quite swim and nearly drowned as a child once.

 “I figured that others would have tried it while I was gone,” Erwin says. “Everybody assumes they can’t when I’m around, but I wouldn’t mind—I don’t use it nearly enough. It’s just there.”

“Just because it’s there,” Levi mutters, gripping the wheel, “Doesn’t mean that I want to go near it.”

“Of course,” Erwin replies agreeably and Levi thinks of the apple trees blooming white in the orchard, the apple he took sweetly staining his teeth and tongue.

 

X

 

 In town, Levi goes to fetch whatever Moblit ordered for the house while Erwin leaves the umbrella in the car and the rain to chance. The man turns a corner and comes back at two after lunch as he’d said, offering no explanation—he probably has a family fortune from former steel businesses in a good bank somewhere, but even twits would have known that it would run out. The innovations that Erwin’s businesses have added to machinery are quite something else, but how they came up with those and convinced state initiatives to take them on is anybody’s guess.

Meanwhile, Erwin strides down the street, jacket on his shoulder and lines on his face deep, gloves stuffed into his pocket.  Levi’s distracted for a second, watching the suspenders expand on the broad torso, but then Erwin gets in the front passenger seat and shuts the door, making Levi sputter in protest.

“I like to sit in the front sometimes,” Erwin explains briefly.

“You have a chauffeur,” Levi scoffs. “What’d you want that for?”

Erwin just unbuttons his collar, unloosening his tie and sighing long and deep, a sound that resonates queerly with Levi’s core.

Their eyes meet in the mirror and there’s an uncanny implication—an understanding that runs, current-like, through the space and moment.

 “There’s air to breathe.”

Levi starts the car, face grim but feeling as if somebody had pressed the coiled wire-springs between his blades and let go. Erwin closes his eyes completely and leans back, smiling a little.

And looking directly at him because it’s safe to, Levi decides that he’ll give in to the urge to smile just a bit too.

They drive on without any fanfare and Levi thinks that nobody from back there would have guessed that he’d be a house dog for one Erwin Smith, working without hay-mowing traction or ploughing. Still, there’s more work to be had tonight with the party preparations and he’s nowhere near complaining when Erwin in the backseat doesn’t protest at Levi’s speed.

 

X

 

The evening rag is a riot with the ice sculptures, floating necklaces of balloons above a gleaming ballroom and yellow flowers alongside champagne streams. The recipes tonight are inspired and all the silverware is freshly polished, the music grand and exciting with the mayor himself present. There’s just a bit too much tipsy, what with people diving and swimming in the pool, a few servants waiting by with towels and wild dancing on the lawn. But the air’s electric, the fountain sparkling and silver under the summer moon, and so the band plays on for completion’s sake.

Levi stands in his allocated corner holding a tray of drinks and refilling them when necessary, watching dolled-up women in bias-cut dresses dancing with suited men. He’d offered to serve even when Erwin sent word through Moblit that the some of the servants were to take the evening off if they wanted— those who don’t work now will have to do the cleaning-up and Levi figures that he won’t be dancing anyway.

In the distance, Petra waves to Levi before she’s spun around by Gunther. Ian, who swapped valet shifts with Oluo, has coaxed an awkward Rico into an ungainly waltz. Levi nods at his colleagues, but refuses to really make small-talk, taking his time to watch the ninety-something guests in the area. Nearly everybody important in the town has been invited and even the already-privileged neighbours are here.

Nile Dawk makes his entrance and hands are being shaken and a rousing toast offered by one Kitts Verman, like it’s Nile’s house rather than his neighbour’s. Levi snorts to himself and figures that the head copper of the town should eat his high hat instead of talking hooey to whoever who’d listen, openly complaining about everything from the price of tomatoes to the recent Hindenburg disaster and German incompetence and how the town’s going to rot with things disappearing at his Sunday parties.  His wife seems immune to his whining ways— she should be, with that hint of her growing belly under the silk ribbon and empire waist.

Certainly, though, Erwin must mind his neighbour enough to emerge from somewhere on cue, excusing himself from business associates to go greet Nile and raise another toast. As Erwin squeezes past his guests, politely greeting and nodding at whosoever, he meets everyone’s eyes and even catches sight of Levi, levelling a small smile at him. Levi would probably have believed that warmth was sincere, if Levi hadn’t been so cynical.

Unlike Nile, Erwin’s obviously been busy, discussing business for the past hour even at his own rag. He famously eschews cigarettes and has never been seen blotto. Lack of booze and tobacco notwithstanding, he’s in good spirits, fresh in an ivory shirt and charcoal three-piece, telling quaint anecdotes here and there and charming the socks off just about every person in his path.

It makes Levi’s lip curl to watch Nile stroke his goatee and press his shoulder closer around his wife’s waist as she looks up, wide-eyed and moist-lipped, at Erwin. They are just two of the many who try to talk to Erwin and congratulate him on something or the other and it’s a lot of applesauce.  But something grips in Levi when he watches Erwin smile at her, all because Erwin’s face softens and there is something sad and wonderful that Levi didn’t think he would glimpse. It makes Levi’s fingers twist tight around the tray of champagne flutes.

Then Mike appears with a bald, twinkling-eyed man and another egghead with dark eye circles, both men in uniforms. And Levi knows they’re real coppers and nearly begins to scoot, but then he sees that they’re not here for that kind of business and don't take Nile's stories seriously, even if they were probably on patrol before this.

They talk and Levi hangs around but keeps his distance, watching Erwin nod and eventually excuse himself. He smiles for the final time at Nile and his wife before moving off, leaving Levi to wonder why there’s such tightness in the man’s shoulders and why his mouth is so subdued.

It’s all very strange, how Levi believes for a moment that he’s the only one who can see past the music and lights into Erwin’s soberness.

 

X

 

Maybe somebody’s had too many or too few cares, because he’s become zozzled. Just as Levi’s moving across the lawn, trying to avoid the dancing couples and get some lady who wants a refill, that somebody goes flying into him, making him stumble back once, lose his footing, and fall into the deep end of the pool, tray and glasses going straight with him.

He comes up to the surface, splashing furiously, gasping with the chlorine in his mouth, a cut across his cheek from a splinter as he went tumbling in. He’s learning just how large the pool really is when he hasn’t un-drained it and he’s not already standing at its bottom, scrubbing at its walls.

He’s never even dipped his feet in when it was filled and now he’s panicking because he didn’t ever plan on trying to swim—that would have been wadding in bit by bit and now he’s stuck trying hard to remember what Farlan and Isabel had tried to teach him with treading in the small river before it dried up one day.

He kicks hard, trying to find his footing, but he’s always been short and he can’t find the pool’s walls to grab onto with all this water. He’s in the middle, he’s bobbing up and down and taking in too much water again. Between the sounds of his gasps under and above water, there’s a sonofabitch laughing, calling others to see.

But then there’s another massive splash and Erwin— somehow, he know it’s Erwin— Erwin is hauling him by the shoulders, his frame knotted and thick like Levi imagined, their bodies weirdly weightless even with Erwin anchoring him suddenly. Erwin’s swimming them both to the steps at the shallow end and pulling him out, calling his name once and already flipping him over onto his back and pumping, like Levi has really drowned.

Levi coughs once, eyes open as they were in the first place, his mouth gaping like somebody finally managed to surprise him despite all his years of living as he has.  Then there’s the registered sting of tears and pool water in his eyes' edges and he’s just staring at the dark clouds. The moon's peeking from behind Erwin as their mouths meet again, then again for good measure and Erwin pulls back with a shuddering gasp.

It occurs to him that Erwin’s really the one panicking.

“S’alright,  he’s not drowning so easily, this one, his eyes were open when you pulled him out,” Hange’s kneeling beside them, her usual laugh threatening to escape.  “Damn, Erwin, don’t you have kittens, he’s not going to drown— did you see how he was fighting to stay above water? Wouldn’t have guessed he couldn’t swim myself, but that’s a bit much drama for the night, I reckon. Can you sit up, Levi? Get some air in, everybody, stand back.”

But people are already milling off, some joking that they’ll be getting their own refills. There isn’t so much excitement as they’d thought, but Levi has been reduced to a kid of seven again, sneaking off to swim and finding the current too strong. He gulps again and then tries to still his trembling, feeling Erwin’s fingers against his cheek as if that’s the only way Levi can breathe again.

And Erwin is staring at him, shocked and still panting too, looking at each other straight and existing as equals for that second, no longer testing and pushing.

 Levi closes his eyes, leaning against those fingers even as they leave, deciding that he should really learn how to swim soon.

“Jesus, shit,” someone says, “Why didn’t you call for help sooner? You just floundered there, not screaming at all and we thought you were just cooling off!”

Like he’s dreaming, like he has always existed in this state, Levi sits up and stands quite normally, heart palpitating, eyes watching Erwin who’s pushed himself to sit up. His mind is clearer than ever, as if the music is no longer playing and there’s only the bass percussion to register as reason beyond doubt.

“I’m fine,” he says, quite calm. “I’m going to clean up.”

X  

When Erwin bids his guests goodnight and returns to the mansion, past the ballroom, up the stairs and to his room fifteen minutes later, it’s obvious that the guests will continue enjoying themselves for hours until dawn. Most of them are sorry to see Erwin retire so early from the night’s merriment, but not even Mike or Hange can guess the real reason for his early retirement.

Levi looks at him as he enters, stiller than ever, but more vulnerable than what either had planned for. It’s obvious that neither of them have truly left the poolside, both their hair and clothes damp despite the night air and Levi’s unauthorised use of Erwin’s bathrobe.

They watch each other for a second, but then Erwin breaks it by turning to the door to shut and lock it.

It turns out that Erwin is never seen drinking more than a little in public because he keeps everything confined. It makes sense, somehow, and Levi watches as Erwin pours a drink for himself, swirling it once and then down, then pouring another for Levi who would normally decline to share a glass. Levi drinks it in one gulp, throat burning, eyes blurring for a second, then Erwin pours himself another and Levi’s watching him act like they’re in control of themselves.

They’ve returned to their uneasy balancing act once more, but Levi tilts his chin just a bit and sees Erwin shake his head once, as if trying to clear his thoughts. It’s when Levi knows that Erwin has already decided on the alcohol and the inevitable.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to drive,” Erwin says abruptly. “I should have left you to drown.”

There are too many contradictions and far too little that Levi’s experienced where this is concerned, but there are fools and days after this. There are such things and Levi wasn’t ever supposed to bother with more than the job that he was thrust into or have more than Farlan and Isabel to bother. He was supposed to be driving themselves forward, not in circles.

He thinks about the gun that was assigned— and the other gun with a single bullet that he found in Erwin’s bedside drawer. “Maybe you should have.”

 “How did you get in here anyway?” Erwin says.

 There are those lines and a small frown forming on his face again and Levi looks at him defiantly. “I climbed the tree right below the window. There was a ladder left around there.”

“I see,” Erwin’s expression clears a little for impassiveness and he undoes his wet vest, wet tie and goes to sit on the bed, back facing Levi. “And what’s this?”

 “I don’t know,” Levi says and suddenly he’s no longer so calm and sure of whatever plans he had to move on with the money he’d saved and the lookouts over the wall. 

Emotions don’t seize so easily upon Levi and his expressions, but now he’s enraged at the question of whatever he’s finally chosen for himself. If there’s rejection involved, that’s perfectly fine because it’s not like Levi’s ever really been completely in control even once in his life and it’s not like Levi really knows what he’s doing with those clogged, choking years of the past or the sharpness of the present.

He’s quivering, standing up with fists balled, angry with everything that has gone wrong in his life and others’, mouth tight with a stringed emotion that he never thought he knew to express anymore. “Do you want to fuck, or what?”

Erwin shifts, looks at him and smiles that queer, meaningless smile. It’s really all Levi needs to launch at him, punching into his chest multiple times with a strength that Erwin will surely feel, larger though he is. For once, Levi’s throwing aside his questions and the fractured rationality behind his supposed choices, finding no more defences for himself; for needing that mouth against his again, breathing air and life into him, for their ruined, crumpled clothes to be shed somewhere on the rug and Levi to be on his hands and knees, face buried in the pillow as Erwin works into him, needing _this_.

When Erwin’s fingers pull away from his mouth, slippery and wet with Levi’s sucking, Levi grimaces at the tang of chlorine and fights back to find Erwin’s tongue, demanding kisses despite the shame, desperate to find that sugary apple trace he’d thought of all afternoon.

“Look at us,” Erwin says suddenly, mouth still half-pressed against Levi’s shoulder blade, and Levi’s glad that he can’t see how flushed Levi has become, from chest to his cheeks. “Good God, what’s become of you and me?”

“Shut up, shut the hell up,” Levi gasps, pulling Erwin closer, bucking and writhing against him. Through the pounding of his blood, he hears Erwin's short burst of laughter and then a strangled oath mouthed against his collarbone when he ruts himself back harder to stop Erwin from talking. He narrows his eyes, squeezes his body tighter in retaliation, earning a thrilling moan from Erwin but a burst of white stars in his vision. “I’m no fag—never before. It’s just because you—it’s just you—“

“It’s just you,” Erwin echoes breathlessly, turning his head back and kissing him.

While Levi fights to gain control, he finds himself lost against that warm, unlocked mouth, those fingers slipping thick and unrelenting, over and into him, breaching and shoving until Levi can no longer negotiate kisses and bites into the pillow to keep from screaming. And tears are pressed like diamonds in his eyes’ corners and he’s moaning for nothing to stop, for everything to go on so he’ll not have to think; that way, he’ll be able to live without fear and responsibility for himself and others again.

 Even before their completion, Levi finds that he was made to take it, to sob and curse and be bent and used and held so tightly. He rides hard, squeezing around and constricting within, hissing and swelling in rebirth against their new rhythm, rolling his hips as Erwin instructs, breathing down hard as the heavy hand presses into the back of his neck. Then they’re fighting each wave of pain and pleasure until he feels himself coming, those fingers tightening against his hips like Levi will surely break before a shout rips itself from Erwin’s throat.

 

X

 

They find themselves lying in bed with a diplomatic distance between them.

After a few minutes of panting and eventually catching his breath, Levi tries to sit up and stand, but Erwin grabs his wrist and pulls him back down.

“Don’t,” Erwin says, voice hoarse from exertion and skin still damp with sweat. “It’s not so simple now, is it?”

Levi thinks for a second about the pool and the wall and Farlan and Isabel. Levi could go; vanishing was never a problem and featured greatly for necessity’s sake. All the same, he’s not quite ready to regret anything when he’s too spent from the physical and emotional stress of the day and his entire life. One or two more rags, Levi promises himself, and the three of them will be ready to leave this town and go to the next. If he needs a bullet or two, now he knows where to find it.

He slides down and settles back in, pulling the sheets over them more. He closes his eyes, mind growing hazy with mere recollection of the sensations of moments ago.

“Son of a gun,” Levi says quietly and bitterly, wondering why he even stooped to this. “You really should have let me drown.”

“Nobody could have,” Erwin replies, and something in his pronunciation changes, becomes a little less polished with less care and Levi thinks it’s more German, harsher and more insistent. “You’re too splendid for that.”

Then they're breathing in the night and the cool air with its allusions to the summer flowers. Slowly, Erwin’s arms find their way around him like Levi’s a ragdoll or whatever Erwin dreamt of while building his town—before Erwin somehow confused it with him.

He lets Erwin stroke his sweaty bangs away from his forehead and looks into those now-familiar eyes, somehow mustering sufficient sharpness in his voice. “I didn’t come here to be ordered around—just so you know.”

“Sure,” Erwin says, and they can hear the equal parts of affirmation and indulgence in his voice. “Sure you didn’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picture bride= mail order bride  
> Convincer= gun  
> Clip-joints= gambling dens/ drinking joints where players cheat at card games  
> Gat= gattling gun  
> Cake-eater= a man who's popular with the ladies  
> Heavy sugar= a ton of money  
> Big-timer= attractive  
> Copper= policeman

**Author's Note:**

> Butter and egg man= man with the bankroll  
> Tin ear= tone-deaf  
> Moll= gangster's girlfriend  
> twit= stupid  
> Pill= grumpy, unfriendly person  
> Pip= attractive man  
> Trip for biscuits= to make a meaningless effort  
> Sawbuck= ten dollars


End file.
